


His Favourite Colour Is Blue

by A_J_Crowley



Series: The Good Book Of Omens [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale has synesthesia, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Colour blindness, Comfort, Crowley Has PTSD (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley is colour blind, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Synesthesia, The Fall (Good Omens), includes artwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27529249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_J_Crowley/pseuds/A_J_Crowley
Summary: "It was part of the punishment, Crowley suspected. To be stripped of such things. An artist made blind to the dazzling glamor of his own creations. He could no longer see the blushing pink of the cosmos he’d painted. The vibrant scarlet of cosmic cloud. The decadent shades of yellow with which he had shrouded the stars, dressing them in a veil of gold that would make the kings of Man avert their eyes in shame, enraptured by their beauty.They were lost to him now. Nothing but memories of a world long since dulled; dusty with the remnants of ash."SUMMARY: A poetic one shot exploring the unseen cost of the Fall; the tragic nature of a serpent's eyes.When Crowley can no longer hide the true devastation of his loss, Aziraphale is there to help pick up the pieces.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Good Book Of Omens [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1487606
Comments: 10
Kudos: 116
Collections: Crowley x Aziraphale, The Good Omens Library





	His Favourite Colour Is Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to *Marynnofmany and *sortofsunny for inspiring me to write this piece via a Tumblr post at the beginning of this year (I finally finished it)!  
> And to *Fallen Angel, who requested a podfic of this fic as prize for winning my 6000 subscriber competition on Youtube - it will be available shortly. 
> 
> NOTE: Please view end notes to find out more about Crowley's dichromatic sight, and the unique way Aziraphale perceives colours.

_ _

_HIS FAVOURITE COLOUR IS BLUE_

His favourite colour is blue. Crowley knows this for certain. 

He sees it in raindrops; a reflection of perfect sky framed minutely in their transparent swellings, the little bulges that grow fat amid the leaves. It reminds him of Eden. Of the first storm. Of what came after.

He sees it in moonlight, a halo of cobalt hovering above the silver slick, casting an illusion of glittering stars against the surface of the sea. A mirage of earthbound constellations. A herald of the ocean’s infinite depths.

But most of all… he sees it in Aziraphale. It’s in the eyes. A study of cerulean. Of perfect sapphires cut into the soft curves and sanded edges of the angel’s face.

It makes Crowley ache. How he longs to lose himself within them. To stare and be consumed by their fractured beauty, if only for a _moment._

But he can’t. He too knows this for certain.

If he does not look away, Aziraphale will _know._ And all his armour, all the secrets painstakingly hidden for millennia, will be split open, until he is nothing but threadbare. Raw and bleeding.

 _No._ He cannot allow it.

Crowley’s world is a portrait in greyscale, littered with broken remnants of Eden green and Seraphim blue. A serpentine curse that came with the bestowing of his earthbound eyes; the full majesty of the Almighty’s palette lost in the Fall.

It was part of the punishment, Crowley suspected. To be stripped of such things. An artist made blind to the dazzling glamor of his own creations. He could no longer see the blushing pink of the cosmos he’d painted. The vibrant scarlet of cosmic cloud. The decadent shades of yellow with which he had shrouded the stars, dressing them in a veil of gold that would make the kings of Man avert their eyes in shame, enraptured by their beauty.

They were lost to him now. Nothing but memories of a world long since dulled; dusty with the remnants of ash.

 _But, at least,_ he comforted, as he sat alone in the stark, cigarette tip shade of his barren flat, _I still have blue._

And then, he wept. And he saw it again, dancing in the rolling shimmer of his tears.

***

_Perfect. They must be perfect._

_List them in your head. Orchids, rosemary, lilies, and sage._

_Orchids for love. For the strength to endure. Rosemary for remembrance, the memory of Before. Lilies for rebirth. ‘To the world’, my angel. And finally, sage for the wisdom of salvation, the recognition of ‘our side’, at last._

Crowley recounted the mantra within his head as he busied himself with a pair garden scissors, snipping away the stalks of plants while he recited. The ill-fated vegetation keened under his touch, eager to please and equally terrified to disappoint. They had bloomed rather whimsically this season, driven to harbour the finest of flowers lest they face the wrath of the forked-tongued serpent that prowled their garden.

 _Snip._ A sprig of rosemary fell, lush and vibrant.

 _Snip. Snip._ A cluster of orchids, dripping with dew.

They collected under the demon’s steady hands, silent in their acceptance of being torn from their roots. _Perfect._

Crowley kneaded a fist along his brow. Aziraphale had said he loved the delicate, seafoam leaves that once flourished around Eden’s walls in the Spring. _Sage, then. Yes… that must be it._

Another sawed limb. Another clip of the scissor’s blades. A gritting of teeth - then claws, extended - raking into the foliage.

Another stalk fell, greeting his awaiting palm. A tear slid past his cheek; allowed gravity to unite them. It hit the leaves like rain.

They looked so… _sick._ Anaemic under Crowley’s ministrations. He wanted to turn his gaze away in shame, sneer at the inadequacy of his creations. _An artist, no longer._

All he desired was a bouquet for Aziraphale, to give the angel the smallest token of his love, of his appreciation of the company he afforded him, and if not that, at least the very tolerance of him, this desperate, broken thing. And yet, it all withered under his gaze.

He could not bear witness to the lush green hues, the soft kisses of purple that graced each petal like a cloak of divinity. Instead, he was greeted with an ugly bloom of mottled chartreuse, greying at the edges where he knew the most beautiful colours existed, just beyond the veil of his sight.

It made him hurt. It made him _hate._

Crowley darted out his tongue, sampling the brimstone of his rage that permeated the air. He let his mouth fill with the acrid scent, let the names of the flowers trickle from his jaws as he tore into them now, savaging their remains.

_Orchids. Lilies. Rosemary. Sage._

_Orchids for love, lost. For the inability to endure. Rosemary for the horror of remembrance, of all the memories that scarred. Lilies for rebirth. Of a ghost that had once sat before him as he slumped, drunk in his grief. And finally, sage for wisdom, the recognition of “there is no ‘our side’, not anymore!”_

_Crowley buckled, showering himself in the scorched embers of his agony, the bloodied sap of crushed flowers… and screamed._

***

_Tap. Tap. Tap._ A rapping of footsteps, echoing up a staircase in Mayfair.

Aziraphale had not detected any sign of Crowley in three days. It did not particularly worry him, mind. There had been occasions over their long relationship when the two had not seen nor heard from each other in decades, perhaps even a century or two.

But, ever since the _apocalypse-that-wasn’t,_ there had been a shift in the normalcy of things, an aligning of a kaleidoscope. Everything had changed. _They_ had changed. And now, rarely a day presented itself where the pair did not talk to one other, or offer some indication to show that, for the time being, they were _alright._

As Aziraphale bridged the stairs leading to Crowley’ flat, he had a sinking feeling that something was, in fact, terribly _wrong._

 _“My dear…?”_ the faint call tumbled from his lips as he ascended the final few steps and propelled himself toward the door, knocking against the wooden frame hard enough to dent the varnished surface.

A coil of fear writhed deep within his gut. There was a foulness here. A poison. It permeated the air, wretched and vile. Aziraphale reached out his essence beyond the confides of his corporeal form, prodding at the spaces between atoms where the senses of the soul reigned supreme, and, finally, he understood.

 _Sorrow._ The entire flat reeked of a bitter, overwhelming sadness; its grip so potent, it could be felt in the corridor beyond.

The angel stopped knocking, and with a swift miracle, undid the lock. The door swung open in eerie silence.

“Crowley… are you alright?” He called, a gentle quality grating at the edges of his words. He was shaken, somewhat, terrified of what he might find, but reassured in the knowledge that Crowley was at least _alive_ somewhere within. 

The quiet that stretched out before him was his only reply. With a click of his fingers, Aziraphale shut the door and made his way further inside.

He felt a little guilty, entering Crowley’s home without permission, but he couldn’t simply stand by when something was so clearly amiss. There was a reason why the demon had not reached out to him, and Aziraphale would never forgive himself if he walked away without at least checking in on the situation. _Maybe, just maybe,_ the angel considered with a cold stab of dread, Crowley hadn’t been physically able to contact him? What if he was injured and unable to move? _What if…?_

The dreaded scenarios pooled in his mind like tar, a slow trickle reaching into the cracks, gumming up the recesses harbouring the very worst of his thoughts, the ones where demons lurked in wait, too-wide smiles full of teeth bared as Crowley howled under their grasp.

Aziraphale blanched, shaking the imaginings away, just as his eyes trailed to a patch of dark carpet, a halo of shadow etched upon the knitted surface. A stain that had once been Lingur.

With a brittle, wounded noise, Aziraphale hurried past it, stifling down his fear. No matter how many times he’d insisted on scrubbing, bleaching and miracling the spot away, it had refused to take its leave; a parting defiance from the smote demon whom seemed particularly keen to live up to his namesake and _linger_ despite all attempts to purge the remnants of him from the world.

 _Never_. It seemed to whisper as Aziraphale picked his way past the kitchen, bathroom and living area, with still no sign of Crowley. _I will always be here. A reminder of his sin. A punishment he can never escape. Never. Never. Never…_

 _Crack!_ Aziraphale jumped, something crumbling underfoot. He glanced down, albeit a little apprehensively, to find the shrivelled remains of a pot plant, the porcelain tub cracked and scattered into fine, mosaic fragments.

The sight was… _peculiar…_ and sent a fresh wave of nausea through the angel’s stomach. Aziraphale clutched at his middle, bidding it to settle before his rather decadent lunch got the idea to make a reappearance. 

Crowley adored his plants, not that he’d admit it, of course. Seeing one so carelessly abandoned to its demise only served to fuel Aziraphale’s imagination. _And imagination was rather dangerous for an angel._

 _“Crowley?!”_ The name squeezed itself through too-tight lungs, the usually indolent patter of Aziraphale’s heart ratcheting to near bursting. He stumbled down the corridor, following the fine grit of spilt spoil leading deeper into the demon’s lair.

“Where are you, you--foul fiend?! _Answer me!”_

The angel stopped short, shoes shuffling against polished slate. He stood on the precipice of the innermost sanctum of the flat, the room housing Crowley’s most precious (and tortured) possessions.

The Garden, as Aziraphale had fondly named it, usually bountiful in its lush greenery, was _destroyed._ A warzone littered in withering petals and smears of earth. Of ivy tendrils, grey as death, reaching out across the slate, grasping at sunlight from a window they could no longer touch.

And, amongst it all, veiled in a fine layer of soil and grime, was Crowley.

He lay curled on his side, body wracked with shudders, face etched in a transcript of tears long since dried. The skeletal husks of orchids lay about him, the scent of their slow, rotting demise perfuming the air, a sickly sweetness of graveyards and memorials.

Aziraphale did not recall approaching the demon’s side but found himself summoned there with the same speed a falling apple seeks the ground, hands feverously working in search of unseen wounds, yet coming up empty.

“M’sorry.” Crowley’s frail voice departed his lips in a long, sobering hiss, and Aziraphale startled at the sound of it. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“What is it, my love?” The angel coaxed him closer, enshrouding the demon in the comfort of his warmth, the proximity of him. He kissed his hair, felt the wetness of tears drain onto his skin, and then--

“I… I didn’t _mean_ to fall.” A whisper, bone-dust brittle, trapped in the throat. “I miss who I was. I miss _seeing_ Her! The shades of the universe… the stars! All my grandest creations crafted in the glory of _Her_ name! I… I miss--”

He stopped, choking on the bitterness of his words, the awful taste of truth that burned against his palate. Something was bubbling up, wrenched from the deepest parts of him. A leviathan emerging from its slumber. It _demanded_ to be set free.

“I miss the colours of Heaven.” Crowley ground out, his tone gurgling as he fought through the sobs. “I can’t see them anymore, Aziraphale! I… I can’t!”

The angel clutched at him, attempting to steady the tremors as they worked to crack the demon in two. He shushed him softly, cooing garbled apologies and soothing words against the shell of his ear; Enochian prayers spoken on the day of First Creation, spilled from the tongue of their Mother’s mouth.

It made Crowley weep. It made him _hurt._ The way in which a thorn does when being pulled from the skin. Necessary. Alleviating. _Needed._

“Sometimes, I almost dream…” he whimpered, deep and yearning, into the fabric of Aziraphale’s waistcoat. “About Before. About what came after. And every time, I return to that moment of descent; of burning wings, and pain, and gravity. But… I can see them! The colours of the cosmos blurring as I fall…”

He hiccupped, serpentine tongue twisting, looping around words that flowed too quickly; a gushing torrent contained no longer. Too much. _Too fast!_

“They’re fading now! After all these centuries… they’re leaving me too. But still I go back, and still I sleep, even as their shades are stripped from me, even when all I’m left with is the feeling of the wind, and there’s nothing other to do than fall. Down… _down_ … into darkness.”

The demon paused, a quietness settling on him, its gravitational pull enshrouding the Garden, until the very air seemed thick and hard to breathe; sucked into space; into utter, absolute silence.

Aziraphale, despite his soft, delicate ways that seemed so befitting to such a place, was the first to break it – shattering the illusion with a plaintive sound at the back of the throat.

He tilted Crowley’s head, reuniting cerulean eyes with their golden counterparts. The embodiment of ocean and sun, of private horizons glimpsed only in their meeting.

“My dearest Crowley.” He whispered; in such a way the demon could not help but listen; the beckon of a siren’s song. “I’m so sorry I never recognised how much you were hurting, my love. All this time, I didn’t know…”

Aziraphale ran his thumbs over Crowley's eyelids, bidding them shut. “Let me help you.”

Anthony leaned into the touch, unable to deny the coaxing warmth of Aziraphale’s skin. The delicate fingertips that brushed against the sharp angles of him, so very unafraid.

“There’s nothing you can do, angel. It’s not a hurt you can take from me, a fractured bone you can heal.”

“Hush now.” Aziraphale interrupted, the pinch of a wry smile tugging at his mouth. He placed his hands on either side of Crowley’s head, tracing the styled locks of his hair, so unimaginably soft for a demon. “I may not be able to gift back what’s been stolen from your sight, but I _can_ do this…”

The angel wrinkled his nose in concentration, then relaxed, the tension ebbing from him like a slip of shed skin pulled loose from the belly of a snake. “Now... close your eyes and do exactly as I say.”

Crowley obeyed, a flutter of hope stirring in his chest. He knew not to let it grow, knew to keep it trapped like a sparrow caught under-thumb. Better it writhe painfully than be set free. Better the agony of entrapment than the despair of watching it shot down, to fall and die alone in the muddy waters of him.

But then… _something_ happened. He heard Aziraphale’s voice, distant to him now, a cacophony of soothing tones and feather-soft words. It trickled into his ears; burrowed down, deeper and _deeper,_ into the very soil of his soul.

“The smell of autumn leaves in Mayfair. The breath of sun-scorched wind as the ducks come to feed beside the pond. Quiet conversations in the Dowling’s household, in rooms awash with stuttering candlelight, and warmth, and secrets. _The colour orange.”_

The memories buzzed within him, building shapes and textures, and then—

An explosion of colour, vibrant as a supernova. It flared within in, and Crowley shut his eyes all the harder, an overwrought wail of noise torn from his throat. He didn’t so much ‘see’ the colour than _feel_ it, blooming like a flower inside his mind. He sensed it the same way a bat harnesses sound to traverse the darkness; lets the echoes of it bounce back at him, enshrouding himself in the feeling of the waves, the ripples of _everywhere_ and _nowhere,_ all at once. 

“What--?!” The breathless question abandoned him, its edges sanded smooth and wet with tears. “How? How are you doing this?!”

“Shhhhh.” Aziraphale urged, clearing his throat. He began again, and did so over and over, each set of memories inspiring a new a cornucopia of sensation, an artist’s palette born by the whispers of an angel.

Crowley revelled in it, losing himself to this new dimension. He sensed gold in the rumbling thunder of spring storms. Purple in the taste of champagne at the Ritz. A bouquet of red in the touch of Aziraphale’s hands, fingertips entwined with a scarlet blush.

And then, the angel showed him more. Combinations of colours beyond the realm of all Earthly sight, of shades surely gifted to the eyes of the ethereal, alone. They danced within his consciousness, igniting like fireworks in dark places that once housed the remnants of faded recollection.

Finally, Aziraphale removed his hands, and Crowley opened his eyes.

The world was grey.

And yet… it was anything but.

The Garden was awash in a kaleidoscope of colour, perceived in senses far beyond the limits of his serpentine understanding. He could taste it. Smell it. _Sense_ it. When he tried to speak, the shades coated his tongue, the words textured and alive.

“Is this alright, my love?” Aziraphale’s voice, delicate as a zephyr, found him with a ripple of emerald green that danced across his skin.

Crowley simply nodded. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t articulate the endless stream of questions that begged to be answered; the vice for which had Fallen. He could feel it again, _there,_ inside his chest. The stirring bird of hope.

This time, he unfurled his grasp; cold, leaden coils loosing.

He set it free.

And so too, his tears.

Aziraphale cradled Crowley tight against him as the fresh onslaught began to fall in earnest. The demon couldn’t stop it. The dam had broken, the river was gushing, the snowmelt swelling the banks and leaving him helpless against the flow. It demanded to be released, each attempt at stifling its force prompting a harsh ache to the throat.

 _No,_ it would not be quelled, not before Crowley had drowned the world in his torrent.

“It’s alright.” The angel comforted gently, despite his own rawness, rubbing patterns into the silk of Crowley’s shirt. “ _I’m here. I’ve got you.”_

He repeated the reassurances, over and over again, until overwhelmed sobs morphed into quiet sniffles, the delicate fabric of his waistcoat crumpling wet beneath grasping fingers, saturated by the flood. An eon passed, or so it would seem, in which Crowley finally stilled and lifted his head to meet his angel, utterly enamoured by the bountiful shades that teased at the fringes of him. Relics of Heaven, of the cosmos, of untold constellations glittering in the darkness. All he had feared lost to him… _returned once again._

“There you are.” The angel hummed, wiping his palm over wet, rose-tinted cheeks.

Crowley shivered at the contact, his mouth opening like a fish breached the brine.

“Thank you…” He ground out in a wavering tone that was somehow both immensely confused and hesitant to ask for clarity, as though he were afraid to wake from some baffling dream.

Aziraphale simply smiled. Answers could wait. First, he wanted the demon to enjoy his forbidden; to reclaim all the shattered parts of him and kiss them whole. And then the angel would listen, as long as it took, until the impossible seam of questions was picked free; everything he had ever been denied, fulfilled at last.

“So…” Aziraphale whispered, combing a loose strand of hair from the demon’s eyes. “What’s your favourite colour, my dear? I don’t believe I’ve ever asked.”

Crowley blinked, a faint blush reddening the freckles on his cheeks. He looked about, gazing upon his new world with rapture. It was everything he had ever wanted, everything he had missed, and yet, there was still one thing he knew for certain.

“Blue.” He gasped, breathing the word into Aziraphale’s mouth as peach-pink lips sought out; moulded to his. Crowley could taste it on the angel’s tongue, could smell it on his skin. It filled him up, blended with his own shades until they become something indistinguishable from one another, and the very fabric of reality was rewritten in ink-stained blotches bleeding sapphire. 

“It’s you… It’s _us.”_ Crowley breathed, as the ocean consumed him.

“It’s always been blue.”

***

"A Fallen Angel's Grief" by Stephano

'Destruction of the Garden' by Mariya_Krivogina

Their Instagram: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CHyAAQSHfRr/?igshid=rvtu8k3ryaex>

'Crowley's view of Aziraphale' by SortofSunny

**Author's Note:**

> What can Crowley see and why?  
> Most snake's eyes are dichromatic. This means they can only perceive two primary colours: blue and green; the latter appearing more 'washed out' and yellow in nature, giving reference to the fact that Crowley's plants always seem to be sick/withering in his eyes. 
> 
> What about Aziraphale's blessing? How can one 'see' colour beyond sight?  
> Aziraphale's miracle was actually based on the real-life condition, 'Synesthesia', in which the stimulation of one sense prompts a reaction in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Whilst the spectrum of experience is broad, this means that people with this condition often associate sounds, smells, tastes, people and objects with colours, enabling them to 'see' or 'sense' those shades in their mind when discussing, interacting, or thinking about said thing.  
> In extreme cases, one can even taste or smell sound, and other extraordinary combinations!  
> As Aziraphale is an angel, I believe he can access this sensory oddity, and uses a blessing to gift it to Crowley, allowing him to perceive the world in a whole new way!
> 
> The experiences written about here are greatly based upon my own experiences as a person with Synesthesia, and I hope you enjoyed and learnt something new whilst reading this fic!


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